So the wife had mentioned to me sometime in the past that many people here in Barcelona mistake her to be Hispanic, and instinctively talk to her in Spanish, which she is not very good at (though she is much better than me, and is taking regular lessons in her university). She claimed that it was because of her skin colour (“fair” by Indian standards, but much darker than white), and “features”.
Now, as far as I can see, she has no Hispanic blood. She is a born and thoroughbred Gult (though her ancestors migrated to Karnataka generations ago). So when she first mentioned this to me a few months back, I didn’t particularly believe her. And then it happened last night.
We were taking a RyanAir flight from Budapest to Barcelona. I was in the aisle seat and she was in the middle seat, and as the drinks cart passed by us, I asked for a Coke (and was offered a Pepsi, and must mentioned that the Pepsi I thus got is nowhere similar to the oversweet Pepsi we get in India. It was actually good), and held a conversation with the steward for over two minutes, speaking in English all the time.
Once the steward had handed me the can of Pepsi and two glasses with ice, the stewardess on the other side of the drinks cart said “that would be two Euros fifty”. Since I wasn’t carrying money (our division of labour (and hedge) during the trip was that I carried the local currency and debit card, while the wife carried Euros), the wife shuffled into her pocket for change.
The stewardess promptly noticed this and immediately said “dos cincuenta” – Spanish for “two fifty”. Clearly she thought the wife was Hispanic! And it is not that the stewardess hadn’t heard me speak to the steward all the time so far, in fairly chaste English!
This must go down as a bizarre occurrence, except that from what the wife tells me this is a rather common issue with her. And she treats this as a feature, not a bug.
Anyway, here is a picture taken on the day that the wife told me that people in Spain mistake her to be Hispanic. This picture was taken in October, on the first day of my first visit to Barcelona.
